February Update Post

The second Tom Stranger, A Murder of Manatees came out on Audible, once again narrated by Adam Baldwin. It has been doing fantastic, and the reviews are great. If you’ve not listened to these yet, you really should, because they are funny.

On the 1st I finished the rough draft of House of Assassins (the series is called Saga of the Forgotten Warrior, this is #2 sequel to Son of the Black Sword) and sent that off to Reader Force Alpha.

I think it came out awesome. I love this series. Ashok is one of my favorite characters.

When I finish a rough draft, I usually step away from it for a month. Then I go back, read the comments from my alpha readers, and hit the manuscript again with fresh eyes. I’ve found that by taking that break, my edits are a lot smoother (if you are too close to a manuscript it is easy to miss thing). Once I edit it again, I’ll send it off to Baen, and that’s novel #19 in the bag.

Up next, I’ll be working on Monster Hunter Guardian. This one is another collaboration, this time with awesome author Sarah Hoyt, only unlike the Ringo novels which are a separate story, MHG takes place in the regular timeline (it actually overlaps with the events in Monster Hunter Siege) from the PoV of Julie Shackleford. I’ll be going over what Sarah has already done, filling stuff in, and then kicking it back to her.

Also over the next couple of months, I’ll be doing a story, and serving as one of the editors for a new anthology from Baen. I don’t think I can announce it yet, because I don’t think we’ve gotten contracts from all the authors yet. But it is going to be awesome. We’ve got some huge names and a really fun subject.

After I get done with Guardian, the plan is to go right back into the Saga of the Forgotten Warrior, with the 3rd book, Destroyer of Worlds.

I’ve also got two collaborations (other than MHG) proceeding in 2018. One is the Trench Fantasy with Steve Diamond, the other is the Space Opera with John D. Brown. They’re both excellent writers, and I’m super pumped. Both of these will be coming out from Baen.

Next solo work in the queue, after Destroyer of Worlds… this will depend because I’m not a muse writer, I’m a talk with my publisher, and figure out what makes the most logistical and financial sense writer. But I’d like to start the 2nd Grimnoir trilogy. Though it may be the next solo Owen MHI novel. I’ll have to see.

Not to mention I’ve still got some stand alones that I need to work in there.

There is going to be a second Monster Hunter Files anthology, this time made of five novellas. But some of those authors are super busy, so I’m letting them catch up with life before I bug them. I’m not exactly lacking for stuff to keep me busy in the meantime.

It’s kind of crazy. The other day the Facebook Memory thing brought up a post of mine from 8 years ago. It was about how my second novel, Monster Hunter Vendetta, had just gotten listed on Amazon, and would be coming out in six months… So it was only eight years ago that I was talking about my 2nd, and up above I’m talking about sending off #19, and working on #20. It sure has been busy.

EDIT: forgot, Monster Hunter Memoirs, Saints, by me and John Ringo, will be out July 3rd.

Appearances:

I will be at LTUE in Provo in a couple weeks. I’m on a whole bunch of panels. If you are a writer, I heartily recommend this event. It’s not really a con, and there’s not a bunch of fandom stuff. It’s all just writing for writers.

This year I’m going to be at LibertyCon, Origins, GenCon (but just as vendor/gamer/regular dude rather than a guest) Salt Lake ComicCon (or whatever it’s called now after San Diego’s petty bitchfest lawsuit) and I’m probably forgetting some other ones.

I’m drastically trying to cut down the number of conventions I attend. For the last few years the number of cons and business trips has been in the teens, and between that about 2-3 weeks of book tour, like 15-20% of my year was sleeping in hotel beds. Screw that noise. I’m getting old.

Other Stuff:

The MHI Savage Worlds Roleplaying Game is moving along. I’ve been approving artwork (it is awesome) and I was just sent the draft of the text from Steve Long to review. I believe everything is still on schedule.

I know you guys all want me to publish Gritty Cop Show. I’m amenable to the idea, but we’re still play testing it.

I’ve got another game related project for 2019 that is in the early planning stages right now. It is going to be really fun. We’re going over contracts now, but I should be able to announce something in a couple months.

The Grimnoir special limited edition leather bounds are coming along. I just need to provide an intro and interview for Spellbound and Warbound. They’ve been waiting for me. So that delay is my fault, don’t get grumpy at Vault.

The MHI logo bullets are still available, and Jack has added some new swag to the store. (the link to that is under the Buy Stuff tab above)

Many of you know I’ve been a regular on the last two seasons of Joe Mantegna’s Gun Stories on the Outdoor Channel. Well, it has the same producer as Shooting Gallery, so there is going to be an entire episode coming up where it is me shooting the thousand yard class at Blue Steel Ranch. I don’t know the air date yet, but it’ll be in the next few months.

And finally, I got some exciting news on the TV show front, but I can’t really talk about it much. Hollywood is weird. Like I’ll sell options, and then go years without hearing anything, and then all of a sudden I’ll hear something really awesome. And then I go back to waiting. In this case, a really super big name, A list, person has signed onto the project. So fingers crossed. I don’t fret about it, and I don’t chase Hollywood. If it happens, it happens. It’s out of my control. In the meantime I’m just going to keep writing books and cashing their option checks.

Yard Moose Mountain:

2017 was the Year of Getting Permits. Like seriously, that was our hobby. Knowing what they do now, land developers earn their money. Winter was actually really mild here, so it is looking like we will be able to get an early start on excavation and road work.

Our well struck water, 285 feet, 20 gallons a minute. Which considering how high up we are over the valley floor, that’s like winning the friggin’ lottery. If you need a well dug in this area, contact Oliver Drilling. He is amazing to work with.

We put in a dirt road last year. Snow and run off mud showed us all the weak spots. We’re going to be changing a few things before we can bring in trucks and equipment for digging the basement. Once that’s done, we’ll gravel the trouble spots enough to get started (the drill rig ended up going down part of the hill sideways after a rainstorm). If you think that sounds like a lot of work, keep in mind this thing ain’t a normal driveway. It’s half a mile, up hill. By the time we’re done this thing is going to need something like a thousand tons of gravel.

I don’t want to say too much specific about the house itself, but it’s going to be one hell of a big project. So we’re going to be working on this for a long time.

Origins in Columbus, OH?
Will you be signing books? Have all your stuff in digital so I might have to buy some dead tree books if so.
Building a house tidbits:
My wife and I built a custom built house, we spent years researching things, here are some notes:
1) Lights: Go cheap, nobody cares and you won’t ever look at them. We did Menards (big box Home Depot/Lowe’s like place)
2) Lights in closets and plugs in closets: Comes in handy for charging stuff and being able to see stuff
3) Storm shelter door: (when you call it that people don’t look at you quite so crazy). My philosophy is if humans want through it, they’ll get through it. (or go through the wall). Hide it and make it “strong” enough to slow someone down. Also didn’t want a super heavy door that will take off limbs if it closed on someone. Looked at a bunch, Sturdy Safe and Golden Spike are on my short list.
Build it like a storm shelter with air vents, etc. If you want fire resistance put safes in there (if you ever replace all the guns that were lost in that horrible canoe accident). FEMA actually has some great info on this.
You want swing in and make sure you can unlock it from inside (they all don’t come like that)
4) No granite counter tops (we have granite): With your wrecking crew, I’d consider something more durable. We chipped it by the sink already
5) Kitchen sink: Wish we would have done a big farm sink, the two individual ones are too small imho.
6) Pantry or walk in pantry in kitchen: A must imho
6) Prep sink right by stove: We did this, it’s awesome for filling/dumping pots, cutting stuff
7) Garbage cans in the cabinets: You can hide them in a pull out, looks much nicer than having it sit out
8) Egress windows in the basement: Pretty cheap to do when your building, and awesome
9) Heater in garage: I got a HawtDog forced air heater, very nice
10) Utility sink in basement and garage
11) Wire cat 6 ethernet throughout. Sometimes you need more bandwidth than wireless. Pretty cheap and the person running your security system/video surveillance system can do this too. I did coax too, though cable companies are going away from this so I wouldn’t bother.
12) His and her showers: Who takes baths? Put a bathtub somewhere, but if you two don’t take baths, do two showers so you both can get ready at the same time
13) Medicine cabinets: For some reason, nobody does these anymore, but still nice to store stuff in, you can get cool ones that are the vanity mirror above your sink
14) Grab bars by toilets: Nice to get off and on, and good for older family
15) Lots of ceiling lights: Do not skimp on can lights in the ceiling. Easy to add when you build, hard or impossible to do later
16) Wall Insulation: We did regular roll insulation, I’ve heard about blown in settling. Foam if you want to spend some of your ILoH money.
17) Consider open tresses for future use space: It’s barely anything to change your roof tresses to “open” whiel your building if there is a spot where you might want to put a room in the future.
18) Screened in covered porch: Barely anything to add when your building and we love it
Hope that helps!

I don’t think I ever got an invite for this year. But that’s okay, I’ve got to run the MHI RPG for the backers, and I’ll probably be product demoing something new that I can’t talk about. For once I’m going to actually play some games at GenCon, and not just run from panel to panel talking about writing stuff.

So when is the Franks book coming out you know Franks and Washington ole 1776 then franks in the 60s kicking ass and punching vampire teeth out and Roswell was just interdimensional demons that he kills or any thing with franks and franks should get a dog but a dog that turns into a giant 15 foot dog bear or a hellhound

SIr,
Just a thought… I used to work in the concrete and rock business. Contact your local suppliers and inquire about the availability of any out of spec basecourse and gravel products. We used to have thousands of tons of material that was created for city or state roads that just barely missed the mark on hitting the specs for those projects, We sold it really cheep to homeowners to use on private roads and driveways and it worked out well for both parties.

Good call getting a woman to help writing a woman. Men usually cant write women well and vice-versa. For instance, I recently read Revenger by A Reyonlds, it was a book about revenge from the point of view of a man with a vagina. But she was really tough when she wasn’t busy not being feminine at all, so I’m sure he felt very enlightened writing it.

I can’t wait for saga of House of Assassins. Do you have an idea of when it will be out for purchase? I’m a big fan of the audiobook Son of the Black Sword. I’ve listened to it a couple times. I’m looking forward to more of your work. Thanks for the great novels.

That’s pretty much just a pipe dream, I just think he’d fit the bill nicely. A friend of mine mentioned Nathan Fillion when I told him and I was just like “I’d watch an MHI tv show with Nathan Fillion as Earl.”

I keep thinking of Jon Voight or Muse Watson as Earl. Typecasting on my part, I’m influenced by Watson in NCIS as Mike Franks and Voight in Holes as Mr. Sir.
I also keep imagining Agent Franks played by Adam Baldwin (regardless of him narrating the Tom Stranger audiobooks and Franks’ face always being in flux). Mostly because of him playing an avowed “cold-hearted, remorseless SOB” in Chuck (also a federal agent with a fondness for firearms).

Oh, shit, I totally forgot he was the agent in Chuck. Can’t remember his name off the top of my head; but I could see that.
I’ll admit I’m not familiar with Jon Voight, but I’d say he’s a bit old to play Earl myself; only so much can be done with makeup and prosthetics. CGI is a can of worms when it comes to making people look older or younger.
Muse Watson same deal, not familiar with his work, but throw some hair dye on him and I could DEFINITELY see him as Earl.

Honestly though, one scenario that ran through my head was getting as much of the original Firefly cast as possible as main characters in an MHI TV show.
Adam Baldwin as Franks or Own
Nathan Fillion as Earl
Jewel Staite as Julie because why not?
Summer Glau as Holly because her and River are both attractive women and ABSOLUTELY GOD DAMNED TERRIFYING if you think about it for too long.
If they made it all the way to Alpha, have Morena Baccarin play Heather.

IDK who Sean Maher or Gina Torres would play in this hypothetical; I’ve only seen them in Firefly so IDK what kind of range they have, and MHI’s extended cast sort of escapes me right now.

The real question here; who would play Skippy and Edward?
And do you think Alan Tudyk would make a good Milo?

I’m a huge MHI fan and am actually re-reading the series so I can document my favorite one-liners and all of the guns/gear. Currently over 50 pages on a google doc of quotes and lists. Anyways, I just got to Ick-mip in Legion and Earl reminded Owen of his lack of diplomacy and cited the incident with the gnomes. Should they be able to save Jason Lococo in a future book (haven’t read Siege yet), I would love to see him and Owen tag team the Birmingham Gnomes together. I almost pissed myself laughing when Owen fought them.

Love your work, keep them coming and you will always have a fan in me.

I love your attitude Larry. If it happens, it happens and all that work on your new home will be much better off if you take the time to do it all right the FIRST time. Sounds like you got your act together well enough for a trip on a long road. Best of all is this comment : “In the meantime I’m just going to keep writing books and cashing their option checks.” I’ll be happy to offer my share of contributions in the purchase of your books.

No kidding about the mild winter! I’m just over the mountain from you and I am amazed at how little snow we’ve gotten.

I wanted to direct your (and that of the rest of the awesome MHN people) attention to a pretty cool RPG on Kickstarter right now. I’m not associated with it in any way, I just like the concept (Lovecraftian 18th century grimdark partially inspired by Bloodborne). Also, the creator has a crybully trying to get them to address whiny SJW bullshit in the rules instead of trying to make his own shitty RPG that nobody in their right mind would want to play. And I thought this would be a good place to find people who A) love RPGs, B) hate SJW crybullies, and C) would probably be willing to pick up a copy either because the concept is neat or just to piss off an SJW asshole who can’t stand other people having wrongfun and thinking that games are not the arena to address social justice. The creator was far more diplomatic in their GFY message to BatDace than I was (and I was only as mild as I was because I don’t want to get banned from Kickstarter). If you don’t want the link here feel free to remove it, but if anybody is interested, check out League of Seekers. It’s also going to have a Savage Worlds version and I know from the recent MHI RPG Kickstarter that you and many of your fans really like that particular system. I’ve personally never tried it but I’m looking forward to using it when I get my MHI RPG book.

Sorry if this is the wrong place for this or if I’m out of line. I’d just like to show love to people who don’t bend over and take it every time some crybully douchecanoe plays the victim card and demands satisfaction.